Rules

Rules are conditions that outline the ideal behavior for your fleet. When an asset or driver breaks a rule, it generates an event that can be used to send notifications.

Rules are the building blocks in MyGeotab for monitoring the driving behavior of your fleet. They help you keep track of your fleet’s behavior in several key areas, including safety, compliance, productivity, sustainability, and fleet optimization.

When an asset or driver in your fleet breaks a rule, it generates an event that is recorded in your database. This data can be used to monitor the overall behavior of your fleet. You can also set up conditions to be notified when events are generated, allowing you to target undesirable behavior and act quickly to solve problems.

You can access the Rules feature by navigating to Groups & Rules > Rules. The Rules page allows you to:

  • Add new rules or edit built-in rules.

  • Reprocess your data to apply a new rule to past data.

  • Create and edit templates to customize your notifications.

  • Create distribution lists for notifications.

  • Manage recipients for notifications.

MyGeotab has a variety of built-in rules for common use cases. These are organized into categories based on their usage for ease of access:

  • Safety rules: These manage safe driving behavior. They can also help you proactively handle risky driving.

  • Productivity rules: These manage driver efficiency. They let you monitor things like late arrivals, early departures, and unauthorized stops.

  • Fleet optimization rules: These help manage behavior such as speeding and idling, which keeps fuel costs low.

  • Device rules: These notify you about any issues related to the devices used in your fleet.

  • Compliance rules: These help track compliance issues, such as missing asset inspections and HOS exemptions.

  • Sustainability rules: These are designed to help you manage your carbon footprint. They can also help you support electric vehicles in your fleet.

  • System rules: These track critical system errors.

  • Material management rules: These manage assets that spread solid, pre-wet, or liquid material.

Adding rules

Learn how to add a new rule to your database.

  1. Navigate to Groups & Rules > Rules.
  2. Click + Rule.
  3. Add the basic details for your rule:
    1. Create a name for your rule.
    2. Optional: Choose a color for your rule and select Visible. When the rule is broken, it will be shown on the map by an icon in that color.
    3. Select the groups the rule will apply to using the Publish to groups dropdown list.
    4. Optional: Add any necessary comments to your rule.
  4. Under the Conditions tab, set up the logic behind the rule:
    1. Click a Condition type to open the options for each condition.
    2. Enter the values needed to measure that condition.
    3. Click Add to add your condition to the rule.
    4. Optional: Click the Scroll icon to open the Advanced conditions editor to write your own custom conditions.
  5. Under the Notifications tab, set up notifications for your rule:
    1. Click your desired notification type (for example, Add email).
    2. Specify the desired recipients and any other necessary details, such as notification type.
    3. Click Add.
  6. Click Save.
New custom rules can be found under the Advanced rules section.

Editing rules

Learn how to edit existing rules in your database.

  1. Navigate to Groups & Rules > Rules in the main menu.
  2. Select the rule you want to edit from the list:
    1. If you are editing a built-in rule, click Pencil icon on the rule.
    2. If you are editing a custom rule, click the rule name.
  3. Edit the rule name, color, and comments, and change which groups it applies to under the Name tab.
  4. Remove conditions from a rule under the Conditions tab by highlighting the corresponding text in the Conditions text box and deleting it.
  5. Remove notification recipients under the Notifications tab by clicking the X beside their name under Notifications recipients.
  6. Click Save.
Edits made to rules are not retroactively applied to data generated by that rule. If you want to apply your edits to previously existing data, you'll need to reprocess your data.

Disabling built-in rules

Learn how to disable built-in rules in your database to prevent them from producing exceptions.

Note: Disabling a built-in rule deletes your exception data associated with that rule. In order to generate the data again, you will need to turn the rule back on and reprocess your data.
  1. Navigate to Groups & Rules > Rules in the main menu.
  2. Select the rule you want to turn off from the list of built-in rules and click Off.
  3. Confirm your selection by clicking Yes in the confirmation dialog box.
Disabled rules can be re-enabled at any time.

Removing custom rules

Learn how to remove custom rules from your database.

You can remove custom rules from your database, but cannot remove built-in rules. Built-in rules can only be disabled by turning them off on the Rules page.
  1. Navigate to Groups & Rules > Rules in the main menu.
  2. Select the rule you want to remove from the Advanced rule list.
  3. Click Remove, and confirm your selection by clicking Delete in the popup window.
A success message at the top of the page will notify you when the removal has finished processing.

The Publish to Groups feature

The Publish to Groups feature allows you to apply your rules to assets in your fleet to begin tracking events.

Rules must be published to a group in order to apply them to assets and drivers in your fleet. Publishing rules to groups also controls who can view or edit rules in your database.

By default, rules are published to the Company group, applying them to all assets and drivers in your database and making them visible to all users. Users can select a group other than the company group when creating a new rule or on the Rule Edit page.

If a rule is published to a specific group or groups within the company group, it will be available to view and edit for all users in the selected group and its parent group. Any users in a subgroup of that group will only be able to view the rule. In either case, the user will still need the sufficient security clearances to be able to edit or view the rule.

Publishing a rule to a specific group will also only apply that rule to users and assets in that group and its subgroups.